Ship construction

Traditional Southeast Asian ships were made from tropical hardwood,
with a pointed bow, and outboard rudders on the sides. Early examples were
of the technical tradition characterised as 'lashed-lug and
stitched-plank'. In this tradition, ships are built by raising planks either
side of a keel, the components being held together with stitchings and lashings
of vegetable fibre. In lashed-lug technique, lugs protrude from the
inner sides of the planks, with holes in the lugs for the lashings. In
stitched-plank technique, fibres are passed through holes drilled
at the edges of the planks. Stitching gradually gave way to the use of wooden
dowels.(1,2)

Chinese ships were different. Chinese shipwrights used iron nails and iron
clamps for joining, and temperate-climate softwoods such as pine. This type
of construction is represented in the exhibition by the Turiang shipwreck.
Although the remains of the Turiang include only the lowermost portion
of the hull, the ship is believed to have featured a flat bow above the water
line, a transom stern, and a single axial rudder. The hull was equipped with
transverse bulkheads which divided the ship into separate cargo compartments.
Marco Polo, who reported seeing saw such ships in the late 13th century, described
them as follows:

These ships, you must know, are of fir timber. They
have but one deck, though each of them contains some 50 or 60 cabins, wherein
the merchants abide greatly at their ease, every man having one to himself.
The ship hath but one rudder, but it hath four masts; and sometimes they have
two additional masts, which they ship and unship at pleasure Moreover
the larger of their vessels have some thirteen [bulkhead] compartments or
severances in the interior, made with planking strongly framed, in case mayhap
the ship should spring a leak, either by running on a rock or by the blow
of a hungry whale (as shall betide ofttimes, for when the ship in her course
by night sends a ripple back alongside of the whale, the creature seeing the
foam fancies there is something to eat afloat, and makes a rush forward, whereby
it often shall stave in some part of the ship). In such case the water that
enters the leak flows to the bilge, which is always kept clear; and the mariners
having ascertained where the damage is, empty the cargo from that compartment
into those adjoining, for the planking is so well fitted that the water cannot
pass from one compartment to another. They then stop the leak and replace
the lading The fastenings are all of good iron nails and the sides are
double, one plank laid over the other, and caulked outside and in... Each
of their great ships requires at least 200 mariners (some of them 300). They
are indeed of great size, for one ship shall carry 5000 or 6000 baskets of
pepper (and they used formerly to be larger than they are
now) (3)

A half-century later, Ibn Battuta saw Chinese vessels along the Malabar Coast
of India. He noted that this was the farthest they sailed to the west, whereas
to the east 'on the Sea of China travelling is done in Chinese ships only'.
His description is as follows:

The Chinese vessels are of three kinds; large ships
called chunks, middle-sized ones called zaws [dhows] and small ones called
kakams. The large ships have anything from twelve down to three sails, which
are made of bamboo rods plaited like mats. A ship carries a complement of
a thousand men, six hundred of whom are sailors and four hundred men-at-arms,
including archers, men with shields and arbalists, who throw naphtha. These
vessels are built only in the towns of Zaytun [Quanzhou] and Sin-Kalan [Guangzhou].
The vessel has four decks and contains rooms, cabins, and saloons for merchants;
a cabin has chambers and a lavatory, and can be locked by its occupant, who
takes along with him slave girls and wives. Often a man will live in his cabin
unknown to any of the others on board until they meet on reaching some town...
Some of the Chinese own large numbers of ships on which their factors are
sent to foreign countries. There is no people in the world wealthier than
the Chinese.(4)

Sometime in the late 13th century (perhaps as a result of Kublai Khan's thousand-ship
raid on Java in 1293(5)), Southeast Asian shipbuilders
adopted the Chinese feature of transverse bulkheads. However, excavated vessels
show that planking continued to be joined by wooden dowels rather than by iron
bolts or nails.

Maritime
archaeology has revealed a hybrid 'South China Sea' tradition, previously
unknown. These vessels are built from tropical hardwood joined by wooden dowels,
but with supplementary use of iron nails to fasten the transverse bulkheads
to frames at the hull. This type of vessel, combining hardwood with Chinese
construction details, may be a result of the Ming ban against private overseas
trade from China. Although emigrants and traders exchanged ideas earlier, ships
of this type have not yet been found prior to 1371 when the Ming ban became
effective. It is possible that displaced Chinese merchants who moved to Southeast
Asia at that stage may have been the first to order ships built in this manner.

Four ships of the South China Sea type have been found around Malaysia: the
Nanyang (c.1380), Longquan (c.1400), Royal Nanhai (c.1460)
and Singtai (c.1550). Two ships of Chinese construction have been found:
the Turiang (c.1370) and the Desaru (c.1830). No hull remains
were found for the Xuande (c.1540). Dutch vessels include the Nassau
(1606) and the Risdam (1727); the Diana (1817) was built in British
India.

Adapted from the book 'Maritime Archaeology
and Shipwreck Ceramics in Malaysia', by Roxanna M. Brown & Sten Sjostrand,
published by the Department of Museums & Antiquities, Kuala Lumpur, and
available from Muzium Negara.

Nick Burningham notes that outboard rudders were sometimes
carried on both sides, but usually deployed only on the lee side.
Several types of Indonesian perahu were using outboard or quarter rudders
until the early 1980s, and in some cases more recently.

The Pontian boat,
dated to the 3rd-5th century, had flush-laid planking lashed together and
fastened with occasional trenails, as well as lugs to which framing timbers
were lashed. The Butuan boats
show the transition to dowel fastening. Dowels are still used by boatbuilders
in Trengganu, Malaysia.